.24 Jul 08 - By Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, a former Virginia State
Climatologist, a UN IPCC reviewer, and University of Virginia professor
of environmental sciences and author of numerous peer-reviewed
scientific studies on climate change.

Excerpt: Gore: “Scientists . . . have warned that there is now a 75
percent chance that within five years the entire [North Polar] ice cap
will completely disappear during the summer months.”

Fact: The Arctic Ocean was much warmer than it is now for several
millennia after the end of the last ice age. We know this because there
are trees buried in the tundra along what is now the arctic shore. Those
trees can be dated using standard analytical techniques that have been
around for decades. According to Glen MacDonald of UCLA, the trees show
that July temperatures could have been 5-13°F warmer from 9,000 to about
3,000 years ago than they were in the mid-20th century. The arctic ice
cap had to have disappeared in most summers, and yet the polar bear
survived!

Gore: “Our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be
more tornadoes than in living memory. . . .”

Fact: The reason there “seems” to be more tornadoes is because of
national coverage by Doppler radar, which can detect storms that were
previously missed (not to mention that every backyard tornado winds up
on YouTube nowadays). Naturally, the additions are weak ones that might,
if lucky, tip over a cow. If there were a true increase in tornadoes,
then we would see a definite upswing in severe ones, too. If anything,
the historical record indicates a slight negative trend in the frequency
of major tornadoes, based upon death statistics.

Gore: “ . . . longer droughts . . . ”

Fact: Hogwash. The U.S. drought history, given by the Palmer Drought
Severity Index, is readily available and extends back to 1895. There’s
not a shred of evidence for “longer droughts” in recent decades. The
longest ones were in the 1930s and 1950s, decades before “global
warming” became “the climate crisis.”

24 Jul 08 - What is it with Al Gore? Why is he
compelled to exaggerate climate change (excuse me, “the climate
crisis”), and then to propose impossible policy responses? It’s like
he’s inventing the Internet all over again!

OK, it’s pretty much standard rhetoric in Washington to say that if you
don’t do as I say, there will be massive consequences. But to say, as
Gore recently did: “The survival of the United States of America as we
know it is at risk;” and: “The future of human civilization is at stake”
— that’s a bit much, even for the most faded and jaded political junkie.

Here’s how Gore works. He’ll cite one scientific finding that shows what
he wants, and then ignore other work that provides important context.
Here’s a list of his climate exaggerations from his well-publicized July
17 rant, along with a few sobering facts.

Gore: “Scientists . . . have warned that there is now a 75 percent
chance that within five years the entire [North Polar] ice cap will
completely disappear during the summer months.”

Fact: The Arctic Ocean was much warmer than it is now for several
millennia after the end of the last ice age. We know this because there
are trees buried in the tundra along what is now the arctic shore. Those
trees can be dated using standard analytical techniques that have been
around for decades. According to Glen MacDonald of UCLA, the trees show
that July temperatures could have been 5-13°F warmer from 9,000 to about
3,000 years ago than they were in the mid-20th century. The arctic ice
cap had to have disappeared in most summers, and yet the polar bear
survived!

Gore: “Our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be
more tornadoes than in living memory. . . .”

Fact: The reason there “seems” to be more tornadoes is because of
national coverage by Doppler radar, which can detect storms that were
previously missed (not to mention that every backyard tornado winds up
on YouTube nowadays). Naturally, the additions are weak ones that might,
if lucky, tip over a cow. If there were a true increase in tornadoes,
then we would see a definite upswing in severe ones, too. If anything,
the historical record indicates a slight negative trend in the frequency
of major tornadoes, based upon death statistics.

Gore: “ . . . longer droughts . . . ”

Hogwash. The U.S. drought history, given by the Palmer Drought Severity
Index, is readily available and extends back to 1895. There’s not a
shred of evidence for “longer droughts” in recent decades. The longest
ones were in the 1930s and 1950s, decades before “global warming” became
“the climate crisis.”

Gore: “ . . . bigger downpours and record floods . . . ”

It’s true, U.S. annual rainfall has increased about 10 percent (three
inches) in the last 100 years. But it’s equally true that this is a net
benefit. Temperatures haven’t warmed nearly enough to increase the
annual surface evaporation by the same amount, so what has resulted is a
wetter country during the growing season. Farmers love this, because
most of the nation runs a moisture deficit during the hot summer growing
season. Increasing rain cuts that deficit.

Gore: “The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to
make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our
ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis.”

This is likely James Hansen of NASA, Gore’s climate guru. He has written
and given sworn testimony that six feet of sea-level rise, caused by the
rapid shedding of Greenland’s ice, could happen by 2100. Why didn’t Gore
defer instead to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an
organization with at least a few hundred bona fide climate scientists?
Its 2007 compendium estimates that the contribution of Greenland’s ice
to sea level during this century will be around two inches. Gore also
forgot the embarrassing truth that there has been no net change in the
planetary surface temperature, as measured both by thermometers and
satellites, for the last ten years.

It would be easy to go on, particularly about the preposterousness of
Gore’s “solution,” which is to produce all of our electricity from
solar, wind and geothermal sources within ten years. I’ll leave that for
the energy economists to tear apart.

— Patrick J. Michaels is a senior fellow in environmental studies at the
Cato Institute and an active member of the United Nations’
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007
Nobel Peace Prize.